Monday, September 06, 2010

Brittle

I got this feeling I struggled to identify and name. I’ve felt it niggling at me, then gnawing, for months now. A vulnerability I can’t quite describe.

For a while there, I thought it was the consequence of too much heartache. For a few too many years for my own good, I was lost in an emotional crucible filled to overflowing with searing pain too destructively volcanic, too blinding to perceive clearly. I had come to believe that just one more dollop of misery would lead to a galactic implosion.

But that hasn’t happened, though additional blows rain down.

The word “fragile” came to mind often enough. Physical pain provides ample incentive to baby aching joint, tendon or muscle. So, yes, I feel a mite fragile nowadays...but that’s not the whole of it.

As September heralds the season of long shadows, what I’ve come to believe is that I’m beginning to understand the leaf in autumn.

A leaf’s stint is short in duration but magnificent in scope. From the bud that bursts towards the sun, through fulgent growth, through trying days of wind, rain and heat, the leaf is Life manifest. But days grow short. With the diminutions of daylight’s radiance, the leaf morphs, becomes sere. It is fated to become...brittle. So brittle, in fact, that it loses grasp on tree and falls to ground. There to rest, eventually buried, to replenish the soil and nurture new Life.

I'm with June: brittle is preceded by an excruciatingly beautiful brilliance, then picked up and swirled around by the wind for moments you might as well consider a lifetime. I totally get what you're saying. Sometimes though, it seems to me that my energy is better spent enjoying the change and not focusing on something that not only hasn't happened, but that I have no control over anyway.

I understand this Jonas and feel it in my own spirit. I told my husband just the other day that I could not longer languish in front of the TV for hours upon hours. Time was growing short. Life itself was wizzing by at an alarming rate, as was my own mortal deterioration.

There is a certain delicacy with which we lift a brittle leaf, carry it...in tenderness. I hold you in this way, whenever I visit here, wishing to replenish moisture, wishing you supple.

Ah, I see that autumn imagery fills the eyes of my Dear Readers! Very good. Most excellent.

I do likes me the thought of "floating down," June.

Thank you, Mary!

Don't you go making me cry, Annie.

Methinks we ALL seek grace, Joanne.

I'm fine my Queen. I am. I just find it hard to explain.

No worries, Sunny. I'm in a kinda good place. As my best friend and I agreed, at the end of a very long, long distance call: "This is the emotionally richest phase in life!" (He had called to tell me he had suffered a stroke...and is now permanently blind in one eye).

Thank you, Gabi!

A most loving comment, LMD. But do we have here a case of mistaken identity? Alas, "sepk" rings no bell.

You're so right, Kass! This "dulling of emotions" business appalls. Best to feel it all. Feel it in our marrow, feel it all in our heart and soul.